The global restaurant industry has been forecast to reach a value of $2.1 trillion, driven by increasing preference for eating out and waxing demand for take away foods among modern time crunched consumers. Robust growth in the number of franchise restaurants, especially exotic fast food restaurants, cafés and snack bars will translate into increased revenues in the industry in the upcoming years. In this age of busy lifestyles, where people are left with little time to spend on preparing food at home, eating out at restaurants has become a common practice. Preference for restaurant food is even higher among younger consumers with high disposable incomes but very little time to spare. This scenario provides an opportunity for restaurateurs to offer food service options in morning breakfast, brunch, meals and dinner. Franchising of restaurants, food joints, and even food products and ingredients has helped boost overall growth in the global restaurant industry in recent years. There are about 8 million restaurants in the world and some 300,000 restaurant companies. The world fast-food industry is expected to generate almost $240 billion, representing a 19% increase over five years. The market is predicted to reach a volume of almost 249 billion transactions. Quick-service restaurants represent the leading market segment, with 71% of overall market value. The Americas represent almost half of the global market share. Fast food had been thought to be largely recession proof, and indeed the industry did not suffer nearly as much as other discretionary spending sectors. In fact, there was some increase in consumer visits as people choose cheaper fast food options over fast casual or traditional restaurant choices. But overall, the recession hurt spending, and consumers overall purchased less with each trip. Fast food franchises fared reasonably well but still felt some pain. The restaurant world is growing beyond the usual suspects like Brazil Russian India and China – the “BRICs” get a lot of attention from the media, but there are untold stories of other emerging markets that food service executives should be considering. There are approximately 15 million restaurants in the world and approximately 1/3 of them are in China. Of course, the majority of those 5 million Chinese restaurants are street stalls, independently owned/operated and/or small chains by American standards. The number one “chain restaurant” market in the world is still the USA, but the largest population centers in the world are India and China. It is forecast that as consumers in China (and India and other emerging markets) continue to grow wealthier and enjoy more buying power, that big-budget Western brands will go in and win not just a share of the growth in these markets but also claw-away share of the existing market; edging out less sophisticated and well-funded incumbent enterprises.